I'm not Gay, I'm Homosexual

Bottom, Versatile and Top

The awakening of sex is one of the most challenging parts of our lives for many of us.

It is something nobody is prepared to face; we receive information from the media, from friends and very rarely from our parents. In all these cases their opinions are based on their own limitations and individual experiences, making their approach no reliable by essence, they are talking about THEM, not about us.

Yes, of course, it is very difficult to talk about sex without having a personal experience be this a bad, distorted or good one. If to this we bring our fears, insecurities, anxieties, and expectations about it it is a really complicated thing.

Now add to this realizing that you are not attracted to the opposite sex. Your head literally explodes with questions: religious, social, existential, physiological. All of them!!!.

When I finally accepted I was attracted to men physically I never considered (in my blessed ignorance) that I had to choose one part of my body for defining myself as a gay man from the sexual perspective: My bum or my penis.

In my mind desiring a man meant that both parts were available, of course, the thought of it was terrifying as it was how to perform. In any case, it was unknown territory. But that was it for me, OK I'm a gay man so I need to be prepared for both and both I wanted.

When I had my first proper sexual relationship with my first boyfriend. I lost my virginity both sides with him and he lost his with me. It was exactly as I thought it was going to be.

I'm extremely appreciative of this as there were not roles, it was the beautiful communion of two people that liked each other very much, that desired each other very much, we were just two men making love.

It was a bit later when I realized how far the "gay community" was and still is from respecting, loving and embracing our sexuality and the individual choices that we can make, as it should be, not just for us but for every human being regardless of their genre or sexual preference.

This is why there were roles established to particular sexual practices, being these: "top, bottom or versatile".

Top if you are the one who penetrates

Bottom the one who receives and Versatile that who enjoys both.

I wish this would be that "simple". It has been and it is much more complicated than that.

The saddest part of this reality is that the gay community has been trying to replicate the heterosexual model with the hope of defining its identity: there is a man who penetrates and there is the woman who receives, who is the passive part of the equation.  

Time has passed by and what it has done is to prove that it was the wrong approach which fed by the media has created so much hatred, so much misunderstanding, and resentfulness among gay men, which has caused in return, among other things violence, self-loathing, abuse and resentfulness.

For those who did not agree or share those sharp classifications, they decided to keep themselves in isolation preferring to live their sexuality in the shadows.

These were the implications (and still they are in may cases) of this forced segmentation:

Top: Masculine look, he may not be keen to practice oral sex or even kiss his male sexual partner. You still find today, in 2020 in London, gay men who call themselves top saying "I'm 100% top" meaning they won't be practicing oral sex to their partners or their bums cannot be touched... ever.

The ironic side is that some gays would make comments like "he looks so butch that I'm sure he is a total bottom in bed". This expression shows how poisonous the gay community is that they use the preference of "bottoming" as if it is the lowest thing a gay man can do. How terrible that is and how much it says about the respect we have for ourselves.

Bottom: Usually associated with feminine men or if they are masculine, some of them treat their bodies using feminine nouns. This kind of behavior has been reinforced by the "gay community" using feminine nouns when talking to each other or using adjectives for describing people, selling products or offering services.

I find this extremely offensive; are we so little that we need to use terminology that has nothing to do with us for justifying our existence or preferences?

Another example: You have bottom guys calling their anuses "pussy" and top gays asking for it.  How we reach this level? so you are gay but for getting aroused you need to use feminine words?. Not even Freud could explain that. 

Versatile: What in principle, at least for me, should be the default preference for gay men is the preference that has the most attacks or negative comments. For tops, a versatile guy will want more which they are not keen to give, for a bottom guy a versatile guy is not "men" enough or "butch" enough for managing them.

All these attitudes and behaviors are learned ones, none of us are given this set of instructions when born, we get this information from somewhere when we are growing and becoming adults and when we feel the need of belonging to a specific group, the so-called "social conditioning".

This is why I think, from my personal experience, that the gay community in particular and society in general, have not done enough for making younger gay men understand that once they awake into their sexuality they will make decisions in regards of how they want to express, using their bodies, their feelings for their temporary or long term partners and that whatever they choose is worthy of respect and not necessarily set in stone for the rest of their life. Their preferences in bed may change as they certainly will as human beings. Whatever decision they make needs to be one based on respect for themselves and for others.